Father Gerrer

Robert Francis Xavier Gerrer was born on July 23,
1867 in the village of Lautenbach, Alsace, and emigrated to the United
States with his family in 1872 to escape the reign of German troops who
had once again invaded the region. The family initially settled in St.
Joseph, Missouri, but soon moved to Bedford, Iowa where Robert attended
school. He demonstrated marked scholastic ability, and was allowed to
skip more than one grade. At an early age he manifested aptitude for
art and music. Robert entertained other youngsters with drawings on
school slates, and used native clay to create sculpture. As he grew
older he learned to play various musical instruments and even tried his
hand at musical composition. His guitar became an intimate friend.

At the age of 19, Robert and his brother Albert traveled the Pacific
Coast, first taking the train from Omaha to San Francisco, then a
steamer up the coast through Portland, Puget Sound, Port Townsend and
on to Victoria. Albert secured a job as a chef on a mail vessel;
although Robert studied his brother’s efforts, he spent much of his
time sketching their surroundings.

Upon returning to Bedford, Robert continued his musical training, and
joined the Fifth Regiment Band of the Iowa National Guardsman. He
expanded his repertoire to include playing the clarinet. Early in 1891
the Hurlbert and Leftwich Circus came to town; their orchestra and band
needed a clarinetist…and thus began Robert’s brief career as circus
performer.

Robert became a member of the Luther West band, and also taught guitar.
Fortunately for us, he chose not to participate in the land run that
fall, and planned to try his luck the following spring. This decision
opened the door for Robert to meet his future.

Christmas 1891—Robert met Abbot Thomas Duperou, Superior of the
Benedictine community at Sacred Heart Mission, Oklahoma. The Abbot had
traveled to Guthrie to provide Catholics the appropriate liturgical
services for the observance of Christmas. Robert struck up a
conversation with him after confession one day, and shared with him the
fact that he had considered becoming a priest, but his family did not
have the money to support his studies. Fr. Thomas invited Robert to
consider joining the community at Sacred Heart, and it wouldn’t cost
him a thing. Robert accepted, and a few days later took the train to
Purcell to begin the 40 mile trip by prairie schooner to the Mission.
Robert wrote to his family upon his arrival, to tell them that he had
joined the Franciscans; he discovered soon that the community was
Benedictine.

In mid January of 1892, Robert received the Benedictine habit, and was
given the religious name of “Gregory.” He found other musicians in the
community, and it was not long before they had formed their own
orchestra.

Under the guidance of several priests at Sacred Heart, Br. Gregory
pursued his education to become ordained. He was also allowed to join
in the art lessons being taught by Miss Kate Weyneck in Purcell, and
gave all this spare time to it. His talent was recognized by Abbot
Visitor Leander Le Moine, who proposed that Br. Gregory be sent to
Europe to further study art. And so, shortly after his ordination at
Buckfast Abbey in Devonshire, England in September 1900, Fr. Gregory
Gerrer was sent to Rome to study art.

Father Gerrer studied fundamentals of portraiture from Ciro Galliazzi.
With Salvatore Nobili, fresco painter for the Basilica of St. John
Latern and director of the Vatican Mosaic Factory, he studied fresco
painting. He soon realized that the student with initiative is not told
how to paint. He may acquire certain skills and knowledge, but his
inspiration and attitudes must come from the artist himself who is
bound to record what he sees, what he feels.

Equally as important as developing his own skill in painting was his
development of critical analysis for all art. With professor Guisepi
Gonnella, he learned the delicate art of pictorial restoration. From
gallery to gallery they went together documenting anonymous paintings
by searching for similarities between the known and the unknown,
between schools, techniques, underpaintings, brushstrokes. With tare
oils, spirits of turpentine, knife, and infinite patience, discarded
paintings were cleaned and restored to their original characters.

Fr. Gregory also had ample opportunity to travel throughout Italy and
the Near East during his time there. His journals detailed visits to
all the major art centers: Rome, Florence, Venice, Vienna. In 1903 he
accompanied Abbot General Maurus Serafini on a mission to the Holy
Land. During the trip Fr. Gerrer was presented with a gift, a small
Egyptian scarab with a goose hieroglyph—the symbol for ‘A’, and to
Gregory, the beginning of a museum collection.

In 1917 representatives of the University of Notre Dame contacted Fr.
Gerrer and requested that he apply his knowledge and talents to their
growing art collection. He spent much time that year cleaning,
classifying, and arranging the works that would come to be known as the
Wightman Memorial Gallery.

Fr. Gerrer would continue to act as an advisor and art instructor at
Notre Dame for the next 15 years, spending summers in South Bend,
autumns and sometimes winters in eastern cities as an artist, critic,
or collector, and the remaining months devoted to the gallery and
museum in Shawnee.

In 1919 Fr. Gerrer moved his treasures from his studio to the newly
constructed St. Gregory’s College. There, several rooms were dedicated
to exhibiting the museum collection of unusual objects, while the
paintings were hung in the foyer and first floor hallway.

No longer hindered by the constraint of the size of his studio, the
collection began to grow. Before he was finished, Fr. Gerrer had
amassed over 200 paintings representing the history of art from the
time of the Egyptians into the 20th century, and more than 6400 objects
from cultures around the world.

Fr. Gerrer loved to travel when he could. In 1907, he helped establish
the landing place of Columbus in the Caribbean, visiting Cuba along the
way. 1917 found him traveling through northern New York, Canada, and
later New Mexico. He made several trips through the northeast part of
the country. And, in 1930, he returned again to Europe, and northwest
Africa. In his final trip, Fr. Gerrer spent the summer in Mexico in
1936. All these places continued to fuel his painting.

Fr. Gerrer was commissioned to paint no less than 79 portraits during
his lifetime. Half of these were portraits of ecclesiastical figures: a
Pope, a cardinal, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priests, and nuns. The
other half is represented by professional men, statesmen, heroes of
war, friends, and relatives.

Rev. Gregory Gerrer, a monk of St. Gregory’s Abbey, set out just after
the turn of the century to create a museum for all of Oklahoma to
enjoy. His tireless efforts are evidenced by the number and kinds of
things he collected. Before he was through, he had amassed some 6555
objects that included beautiful paintings and sculpture from the middle
ages to early 20th century, artifacts of Western civilization, material
examples from cultures around the world, botanical specimens,
zoological specimens, mineralogical specimens, and oddities such as a
block of tacks from the great Chicago fire. Nothing was outside his
range of interest.

Fr. Gerrer’s collection was known as the St. Gregory’s Museum and Art
Gallery, and was open to the public from 1919 until 1962 when the
entire collection was placed on loan to the Oklahoma Science and Arts
Foundation and exhibited in the Planetarium building on the fairgrounds
in Oklahoma City. The loan was necessary due to the fact that St.
Gregory’s was about to undergo remodeling and renovation to accommodate
the change to a co-ed campus. The collection needed a safe place to
stay, and the OSAF was willing to give it public exposure. The
collection remained on loan to them until the mid 1970s.

Fr. Gerrer was a unique individual whose desire to bring culture to our
state has secured his place in history. Admitted to the Oklahoma Hall
of Fame in 1931, he was also recognized as the leading artist in the
state at that time

While it was away, efforts to raise the funding needed to build a
proper home for the collection were begun. These efforts culminated in
the construction of the present facility, which opened in April 1979.
In the name of the new museum Fr. Gerrer continues to be remembered,
along with the Mabee Foundation of Tulsa whose financial generosity,
along with those of hundreds of individuals and businesses, helped
allow this facility to be built.

High quality reproductions of artworks by Fr. Gregory Gerrer are available for purchasevia Request-A-Print. A portion of the proceeds from each purchase helps support the Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art.